Girl Anachronism: Institutionalised
by D.i.S.c.O.n.N.e.C.t.T.e.D.d.O.t
Summary: Dissatisfaction is nothing new. You just keep holding out for something better after high school. Eventually your subconscious forces you to give a damn about what goes on around you and you finally realise that you had it so good. There's no going back.
1. Is It Wicked Not To Care?

7:56 AM 

FUCK. THAT. HURT.

"You young people have no respect. None whatsoever," the old woman barks, getting in my face and breathing her disgusting breath all over me. The way it smells makes me wonder why she's not dead yet.

I answer her in silence, suppressing the urge to swear loudly. Honestly, the sly bitch throttles my shins with her cane as I stand up to give her my seat and she's got the nerve to say that I'm disrespectful?

I sit back down and ignore her with the aid of the grungiest music I have on my iPod. Being a trip-hop/"I listen to music to calm lower my dangerously high blood pressure" sort of person, I can't help but utter "What the _fuck_?" when I find Rammstein of all things. This is one of those rare moments when I believe in God.

My fanatical atheism is restored as I realise that my expletive is misconstrued and I am suddenly being prodded in the shoulder. Next thing I know I'm being subjected to a walk of shame down the aisle to be told off by the bus driver, who writes down the name of my school and informs me of further consequences.

I start back towards my seat, but the crowd blocks my way, so I stand and turn my music up as loud as it'll go, mouthing along and nodding my head in time.

I am then poked in the back by, to my chagrin, my mother's beatnik hippie friend, Lena, and am thus obligated to remove my headphones and turn the volume down. She's disappointed in me because, like most people, I do not believe in a "proletariat revolution" or any of that Communist bullshit. To a very certain extent, we share the same beliefs and thus tried to recruit me into the Socialist Party when I expressed my interest in a political career. I told her to piss off and got grounded for a week.

She has dreadlocks that'd probably be blonde if she bathed regularly, or had any personal hygiene for that matter. Some of her teeth are brown.

"Having respect for your elders is important, you know. What kind of person refuses an old woman a seat? Just because you teenagers think you rule the world does not make it so, because you teens don't know everything. It really does make me fear for this world's future. Are you listening to me…?"

I put my headphones back on and thousand-yard stare out the window, oblivious to her amounting anger and the pole spearing my heart.

* * *

Please, dear readers, opine away. 


	2. Where's Your Head At?

Special thanks to somekindasuperstar and Lady Keshanna of the Night for reviewing. I don't own LotR.

* * *

"Hey. Look, there's a new girl."

"Shhhh, you'll wake her up."

"I wonder how she got here."

"Your copy of _Fellowship of the Ring_ says she committed suicide by stabbing herself in the heart because she's been repeatedly abused."

"By whom?"

"Her parents and/or family."

"Specifically?"

"Yep."

"How do you know she's been stabbed?"

"The hole in her shirt and the blood around the hole."

"What do I get if you're wrong?"

"My limited edition Aragorn figurine."

"Hmmm… high stakes."

"Come on, she's garden-variety. Just look at her."

"You're on."

What the hell was that all about? Are they talking about me?

"Hey, she's waking up. Shhhh…"

I open my eyes and take in my surroundings. I read somewhere that ten seconds of observation could save your life. Can't remember where though.

Through the dim light I can discern dirty sandstone walls, bars, a sink, a mirror above the sink, a toilet and two other people in the cell. There's another one across from us, separated by a hallway.

It's a jail. Don't drop the soap. I giggle at my own stupid joke, but then realisation hits me.

What the fuck did I do? I haven't done anything recent and the last time I had a toke was four months ago and I haven't done anything since then. Absolutely nothing, nothing that could be deemed "criminal", unless the Government has decided to go all _Battle Royale_ on our arses, but why would they do it to a Catholic school? Especially since ours is one that doesn't have a bad reputation, like St. Claires (if sluts could fly that place would be an international airport) or Holy Trinity (aka "Little Cabramatta"), for example. Okay, scratch that idea because I know that wouldn't happen in Australia or any Western country and I'm only spazzing out because I have no idea where I am and it's definitely not a hospital because it looks like shit and because if I remember correctly Lena's head exploded and my impaled heart...

What the _FUCK_?

That not a normal memory. I don't know many people who would survive having their heart shishkababed.

So... where am I now? Purgatory? Hell?

The animalistic shrieks from the surrounds say I'm probably in Hell. Or some loony bin.

Maybe my cellmates could help me. I hope.

"Hi," they say, their voices lilting and oh-so serene. Musical almost.

"Erm... hi," I say hesitantly. My adjusted eyes can discern a blonde and a brunette, both annoyingly beautiful. They introduce themselves as Kat and Melissa.

Yep, definitely Hell. My personal Hell.

"I LOVE _Lord of the Rings_ and I'm completely obsessed with everything to do with it, but the movies suck," says Kat, a blonde who wouldn't look out of place hanging off a Premiership footballer's arm.

"Yeah, we're best friends and back in the real world we were Lord of the Rings purists," continues Melissa, a willowy, perfectly-coiffed brunette with cheekbones one could snort coke off and… are those eyes _purple_?

This seems, odd. Their voices don't suit what they're saying.

"...and you might want to fix that shirt of yours," Melissa continues, pointing.

I was never one for public nudity. Private, sure. Paid, yeah why not? Private and paid? Piss off, I have my dignity to uphold.

Half my shirt is hanging off my shoulder and there's blood all over my bra. This is my favourite bra, hand-made in France and now it's ruined. I don't want to think about that now, though, because my priority is finding out where I am and reasons why. I pull my over shirt over my shoulder and ask.

"Well, you're in the Mary-Sue Holding Bay. What's the fandom you're obsessed with, how shit was your life, spectacular or normal was your death and what did you look like originally?" Kat asks, as if she's said it many times before. Her tone's so perfunctory.

"I don't have a fandom obsession and what do you mean by..."

"Look in the mirror," she interrupts, indicating the sink and the mirror.

I get off the floor and walk, bracing myself on the basin. Everything's normal.

"When people get here, things change," Kat continues. "I never looked like this. I had glasses, freckles, was about half a foot shorter and didn't look like some uppity, anorexic bitch," she explains.

"And I didn't look like I belonged in some cheap men's magazine. I was a B-cup, a braceface and boyish," Melissa elaborates.

"So what's going on?" I've haven't felt this way since I was the new girl at St. Andrews. All helpless and whatnot.

"Well, there's this thing about people, usually girls, dying and being transported to a fictional world they're usually obsessed with. Causes of death are usually suicide due to abuse, be it sexual, physical, emotional, etc or murder; or an accident, like a car crash or a tolchock to the gulliver. Our death was a car crash," Melissa says, "but our sort is new. We're the purist type that knows what happens and would warn the now personified characters of coming event"s, but as we're not exactly beautiful, our appearances are altered. You're "pretty type, and the "pretty" type is always abused and has a checkered past, so who did it and who stabbed you? Or did you do it yourself?"

"I've led a pretty good, typical teenaged life, thanks," I sneer at their assumptions.

"Aha, I knew it! Aragorn, come to mama," Melissa cries triumphantly.

"But how did you get here? It looks like you got murdered," Kat protests, shoving the figurine down her 2 acres of heaving bosom.

"I wasn't murdered, I was in a bus accident and was impaled on a pole." At least I think I'm telling the truth.

"Hey, there's the accident!" Kat is suddenly jubilant.

"But, I wasn't particularly obsessed with any fandom at all. I preferred reading about history, politics, philosophical discourses..."

"Like what?" Kat interrupts.

"I like history, politics and philosophy," I repeat, "so I've read books by people like Marx, Camus, Zinoviev, Orwell, Hannah Arendt, et al. The closest thing I've come to fiction is _Transmetropolitan, _and since that's really heavy on the dystopia, I'd really rather stay in the real world where's it's not that fucked up. That place is too far gone to be ameliorated and I'm not an escapist."

They look at me as if I'm fucking insane, or like they just had no idea what I said because they don't understand. Like when my English teacher thought it was a good idea to read a story I wrote not only to my class, but to all the others she had as well.

Before they can say anything, a cloak-clad figure raps on the bars with a black baton. Ooooooh. How ominous.

The guard opens the door and grabs me roughly. I don't feel like protesting, as that would add to the cliché of this place. Plus, if other prisoners see this they might think I'm hardcore. I giggle and the grip tightens. I'm told to "keep quiet".

I'm led down the hall, half expecting to be hit by projectile spit like that chick in _Silence of the Lambs_. Thankfully that doesn't happen, and neither does a call of "dead man walking".

I'm thrown into a sterile-looking, white room. Everything in the room is white. The pain in my arm is dulled by my distraction due to the thing in the corner that looks like one of those metal-detector doors that people have to walk through in airports, except this one's hotted up with wires sticking out. It actually reminds of something out of some weird sci-fi anime thing.

A woman spins her white chair theatrically from behind her desk to look at me. Everything's so goddamn white and perfect: her hair, her skin, her suit and the tips of her French manicure. The only normal thing there is in this room is my incongruity.

"Hello, you must be the anomaly in our system, and we must get rid of you immediately," she says, clipped and all business.

I know I should protest, but in this situation, I know I can't. Everything is just uncontrollable and this starts to feel like a nightmare where nothing makes any sense and you're nothing in the scheme of things. A bit like life really, but in a nightmare you're part of the action and there's an element of soma.

This is a nightmare. An incredibly tangible nightmare I will not acknowledge because it doesn't matter and I'll wake up in a hospital somewhere and they'll tell me how hard the operation was and how they thought that they were going to lose me and how good it is that they managed to save my life and the doctor who operated is about to receive some sort of huge accolade because he found a way to put a heart into the body of someone who completely lost theirs and…

That won't happen.

* * *

Wow, longest chapter yet. Feedback is always good (hinthint) 


	3. Earth Intruder

**Spurned on by reasonably good feedback (and somehow via LiveJournal), I've decided to continue with this thing.**

**To be honest, I've moved on to other things (i.e. preparation for the last two years of secondary education), but to give you a vague idea of how long I've been here and the (shamefully) extensive knowledge of the subject matter (no prizes for guessing), let's just say that I started long before there were "STATUS" or "WORLD" options and "GENRE" did not need a scroll bar.**

**I'm only 15 and 5 months, and yes I started very, very young.**

**The fic is a writing exercise as I need to prepare for English Advanced Extension, and that is going to be one of the biggest bitches I am ever going to face if I can't write not even a semblance of coherent (or at the very least, idiosyncratic) fiction.**

**And I need to figure out how to stop writing in 1st person**

**Tips/feedback/concrit are thus paramount to my cause – and I implore that you be as specific as possible.**

**Elvish is in** _italics._

* * *

Wake up. 

_But I'm awake. _

_Oh, this again. I know what to do._

Open your eyes.

_I can't do the impossible._

Breathe. Take a long, deep breath.

_Go to hell, I won't be going with you. I'm still alive._

* * *

"I hate it when that happens," I say to no-one in particular. 

Wait, I didn't.

I didn't say that.

I know what I was meant to say, but it doesn't come out right. Never mind that I had one of those moments where I didn't know whether I was awake or asleep or it was just a very lucid dream to the point where I could feel my throat and muscles constrict but my limbs, mouth, eyelids and my fucking respiratory system couldn't function properly… consciousness don't you fucking fuck with me, I'll stab you if you do.

I know what has happened to me, and I know that you are to blame, you conniving sonofabitch. You are the moth that continues to fly onto my computer screen at some ungodly hour of the night when the only light emanates from it and your guts are being smeared onto the monitor and you keep coming back because, my flimsy attempts at squashing you with my inadequate backhands notwithstanding, you want me to know that you are there and I cannot do anything about it because I'm incapacitated somehow.

And when I stop fighting, I would've worn you down to nothing, thus, not-so-violent resistance wins and I can operate as I please.

Right now, I want to open my eyes, move around and breathe.

As I can do that without undue complication, something is indeed amiss.

One thing that I've noticed is that the best litmus test for stripping people of their delusional corpulence is to place them in absolutely fucked up situations – sometimes the threat of death can suffice, while for others that would be too easy and they need a different indicator.

A common property between acids and bases is that they both corrode.

The most disappointing thing to have realised about myself at this direly inconvenient moment (and in connection with that whole year 10 science spiel) is that I actually listened in Science at some point.

Please just stop, whatever this is, I don't want it.

* * *

---- 

Should anyone give no more than a glance upon this woodland tableau, they would see exactly that and move on to something more interesting (because, von Guerard, you got it all wrong. No matter how hard you tried, you could never make man, God and nature understand each other).

Upon closer inspection they would see an undeniably feminine figure sit up and take in her surrounds. Getting right into her face, however, she schools her anxious expression into one of indifference since a public showing of fear is embarrassing and acting irrationally due to fear can land you in a world of shit.

She brushes herself off, ensures that her Catholic schoolgirl clothes are on properly and that she has everything that she died/crossed the space-time continuum in with her.

"Okay," she says, followed by a shudder of disconcertment. Her navy-shaming list of expletives crescendos along with her frustration.

She begins to test her newfound speech, the alien vowel-and-consonant disarrangement curdling in her mouth. She knows what she is trying to say, and she says it like she intends, but her insubordinate jaw refuses to comply with native tongue.

Deciding that standing stationary and talking nonsense would do no good, she follows the sound of a nearby river and tries to make every step as silent as she can. The first thing that comes into her mind is how much this place reminds her of the Black Hills Forest from the Blair Witch Project, a.k.a. the source of her night-time angst for three years because no-one told her that it wasn't real.

This is real now. As real as the blindfold, the binds around her wrists and the rope around her neck which tightens whenever she attempts to fight back.

----

* * *

Left. 

Right.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Stumble.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Sway unsteadily forward, two, three, four...

Go to ground, two, three, four…

Haul ass up gingerly and gasp in pain and make sure to vary the tremolo, and hold for four.

In all honesty, I'm actually not that weak; it's just an act to delay whatever impending doom awaits me. Gang rape and indoctrination into a cult spring to mind. Poor ironically-named Elizabeth Smart. Fucking Mormons and their polygamy.

Right.

Where the hell am I being led to?

Left.

Maybe I'm going to get the Blair Witch treatment?

Right.

Or perhaps an anal probe?

Left.

Ew, gross. L-O-fucking-L.

Right.

Lef– SHIZA MINELLI! I actually tripped for real.

The rope around my neck burns and is probably an indicator that I'm rightly pissing them off and that they're going to have to resort to dragging my sorry arse to wherever we're going. If I continue with that, the pointy thing now poking my back will probably stab me.

Nevertheless, something rabbit-punches me instead. Ha, I am insufferable.

* * *

---- 

"_What is this you bring before me?"  
_

"_I believe it is one of _Them_."_

Their subject matter is slumped ungracefully (and quite indecently) on the (maybe) marble floor. Awakened by the voices, her first instinct is to lock her legs together as tightly as she can. She is shoved cruelly to her knees and her blindfold is torn off and some of her hair is ripped out.

She grits her teeth and snarls like a feral animal.

"_She has the appearance of an Easterling. New spies, perhaps?"_

"_Regard her apparel – she is one of _Them_."_

_"In these times we can no longer be certain of these with these matters. She shall be despatched immediately."_

_---- _

* * *

Opine away (if you even got up to this part). 


	4. Hold Yr Terror Close

This ended up being darker than I expected. You have been warned.

I own nothing except for the obvious.

_Unguerea _ Hollow Ones (in Elvish)

Thanks to everyone who reviewed - it's the reason why I'm continuing this thing.

* * *

The nose-end that twitches, the old imperfections---  
Tolerable now as moles on the face  
Put up with until chagrin gives place  
To a wry complaisance---

Dug in first as God's spurs  
To start the spirit out of the mud  
It stabled in; long-used, became well-loved  
Bedfellows of the spirit's debauch, fond masters.

_The Companionable Ills, _by Sylvia Plath

* * *

IN the Mary-Sue Holding Bay, Mirage Lauredanna Regalia is far from happy.

Her flawless white skin is tinged with a quite fetching shade of "enraged" and her manicured nails are digging into her palms, malarial roses spreading across their planes.

The source of her sudden lividity is one Paulina Josepha Alcantara Zinner.

"Spanish-Filipino father, Anglo-Australian mother, separated when she was four years old, mutual decision, still on good terms," Mirage mutters. "No peculiar features save her so-called exotic looks due to mixed descent… named after _the first Asian footballer to play for FC Barcelona_? Argh," she continues, "this just will not suffice."

The problem that Ms. Regalia has with aforesaid "anomaly in the system" is her unpredictability of mind which could engender potentially harmful actions and God knows what other perversions of nature (which are sure to be numerous). Ms. Regalia didn't get to where she is now without knowing the rules of inter-universal travel and the consequences of breaking them. It's not just a matter of keeping everyone happy by conforming to tried-and-true formulae and a fulfilling though predictable ending.

To put it lightly, it's called "keeping the peace", a term which resides in the same vein as "Mutually Assured Destruction".

However, underneath all the doom and gloom, Mirage Lauredanna Regalia fears for what can happen in a world outside the jurisdiction of earthly physics.

Oh, and don't forget the girl's welfare.

* * *

I remember studying contextual symbolism a while back; I learnt that there is nothing accidental in art. Every miniscule detail has been contrived to create some sort of effect. I aced that part of the unit, but I'd never think that I'd ever have to apply those skills to real life situations like I am now as my last defence from insanity, because seeing manifestations of your Id and Super-Ego is perfectly normal, innit?

"Id?"

"Cha!" simpers a barely dressed, erm, skank, who is currently bent over the only basin in the cell and checking herself out in the surmounting mirror (which is not understandable given the amount of light, or lack thereof) on the right side of the room. To my chagrin, I know that that's a leopard print g-banger underneath that red tartan skirt (or belt; it's so fucking short) and matching bra showing through her flimsy, white button-up shirt. Dumb bitch also hasn't noticed her patchy fake tan and black roots showing through her moribund, bleach-blonde hair. An old friend of mine ended up with purple lesions on her face from constantly wearing that much make-up.

"Super-Ego?"

"Here! I'm here!" calls a bespectacled, more comfortably and decently dressed (in blue) entity sitting against the left wall, currently reading The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, one book from one of the many stacks of thick tomes that obscure her from plain view.

The three of us, in this one cell. One reinforced metal door. One window. Four badly mortared walls.

One beam of light – a vector which diverts attentions to the thin demarcation between the wall to the left and the door to the right.

It's unerringly reminiscent of the "left versus right brain" debate, the door aptly placed and evoking the imagination of possibility, however far-fetched they make be, because there is no possible muzzle for a riotous fantasy left unattended by the stabilising effect of an ugly, intractable wall.

It's only ironic that I am seated directly in the middle, opposite this fucking allegorical phenomenon.

Doors can be opened and walls can be demolished.

Fuck reason.

Left and Right mean different things in politics, and it controls so much, which is why I considered that career path in the first place. Reason never counts for much there, because the journey doesn't fucking matter, just as long as you've achieved your end.

My end is not here.

"Let's bust out, we're not staying here any longer." Speaking that language is fucking with my mind and the exasperation is draining. Id spins on her heel to look at me and Super-Ego peers over a particularly large pile of books in my direction.

"You wanna bust outta here?" Id asks, slurring words together and I nod in reply.

"What is that strange language you are speaking?" asks Super-Ego with perfect elocution. I shrug, and she continues "it seems that English idioms do not translate into it."

I can practically feel the buzz of newly-formed neural pathways in my brain.

"Let's blow this joint," I say in _perfect English._

Vita Pulchra Est, for now.

* * *

Elvish hearing has its merits, but Lord Elrond Half-Elven of Imladris is beginning to doubt them. For one, the source of his current discontent is an unpleasant caterwaul of obvious distress accompanied by a cacophony of raucous cries which would be more suited to a battlefield, but instead are coming from the recently built Dungeons of the _Unguerea_ (and are continuing to disrupt the ambiance of safety unique to this haven). Had he the time to do so, Lord Elrond would investigate the matter himself, but instead has other exigencies to attend to – Glorfindel has arrived, intact and with the most important thing on Middle-Earth.

Wise as he is, Lord Elrond knows that no matter how trivial the _Unguerea_ are (and how easily they can be disposed), something must be done to ease his growing suspicions of this (hopefully) isolated incident. His twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir (mirrors of his likeness: tall, grey-eyed, pale, black-haired, powerful and agile, but lacking the patina of the Ages), happen to cross his line-of-sight at that very moment and he asks them to investigate the disturbing sounds which are becoming more brutal with time; if not for Elvish hearing, one would not be able to hear the impact of flesh on blunt objects, which serve to punctuate the ceaseless screaming with the occasional comma.

On their way to the Dungeons, the meaningless noise changes to a battle of high-pitched pleas for mercy against deeply reverberating, oppressive roars in the arena of the unmistakable sound of unevenly matched hand-to-hand combat. It stops as they reach the adjoining corridors, but they continue to proceed cautiously, drawing their daggers as they close in on the cell door and open it tentatively.

Books and three bodies in all stages of devastation are strewn over the gritty floor. The damage done is extensive: gouges in the rock walls that were not there before, the wood of the door has been splintered and dented in places and the hinges have been loosened precariously (by force?), the mirror has been reduced to nothing but bloodied remnants that have either pooled in the now askew basin or pepper the unconscious body of a heavily battered, scantily clad girl bleeding profusely from the head. Another, in the middle of the room, "the Original" as they remember, is curled in a foetal position, breathing quietly, hiding her face from view and clutching a large shard of the mirror either indifferent or ignorant of it cutting into her skin. The denouement of their macabre observations, the worst of all, is the splayed corpse of a blue-clad girl, whose throat had been clumsily slit. Her head lolled in the Elladan and Elrohir's direction, their only defence from the haunting stare being the cracked lenses of her glasses.

The Original suddenly looks up at them, her face almost hidden completely by the multitude of bruises and cuts; her expression is stony, but it renders words redundant:

"Help me. Please don't hurt me. I'm scared. I did this. I killed them," she says voicelessly.

"I didn't want to," she says in Westron, her resistance finally broken.

* * *

Feedback is welcomed as much as concrit.


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